in The Vault

Delta Force 2: The Colombian Connection (1990)

Man, what a piece of shit. Delta Force 2: The Colombian Connection aka Delta Force 2: Operation Stranglehold is at the bottom of the barrel when it comes to action movies. Bad acting, no plot, and ultimately forgettable. I’m shocked DF2 didn’t go straight to VHS. If you’re curious, I have not seen Delta Force 1. Though had this not had “2” in the title I’d never have known it was a sequel anyway. I chose DF2 believing it would be one of those “So bad it’s good” movies. Though I’ll admit there are some memorable moments of mind-numbing stupidity, overall this was a huge waste of time. Everyone knows about Chuck Norris jokes, but after seeing this it’s clear that the biggest joke of all is his acting career.

Colombian drug lord Ramon Cota (Billy Drago) is the biggest baddie in the whole goddamn world. The final straw comes when Cota kills a DEA surveillance team on the streets of Rio. The government retaliates by calling in Col. Scott McCoy (Chuck Norris) and his wise-cracking buddy Maj. Bobby Chavez (Paul Perri), I guess the two of them are the Delta Force? McCoy and Chavez board a plane carrying Cota and bring him in, but not before throwing him out of the plane and then catching him in a pointless skydiving scene. Alas, Cota gets out on bail and escapes. If that wasn’t enough, he goes to Chavez’s house and kills his brother and wife. Chavez, followed by DEA agents goes after Cota but Cota gets the upper hand and kills Chavez while capturing DEA agents. Most of the characters we got to know in the first ten minutes are now dead.

Let me give you my two cents on Chuck Norris as an actor. I’ll admit Norris has screen presence with his dead stare and scraggly beard, but his tough guy exterior falls apart anytime he opens his mouth. Watching Norris recite dialogue is like watching an emotionless robot struggling to comprehend the English language. Thankfully, his dialogue is minimal and no more than him barking out a few commands. But people’s idolization of Norris couldn’t be more strange and undeserved.

Even stranger is the performance by Norris aka McCoy’s commanding officer General Taylor, played by character actor John P. Ryan (Five Easy Pieces, Runaway Train). I’ve liked other Ryan performances but here it’s as if he forgot how to be human. I can’t tell whether Ryan is pissed or delighted, he’s borderline Gary Busey. Though he does have the honor of delivering the most memorable, if not bizarre, line in the movie, which I’m going to need a whole paragraph to discuss.

McCoy travels to Colombia to track down Cota where he is assigned a contact. Beonya Plaza plays Quiquina Esquintla, (god that’s a lot of Q’s) a Colombian villager who helps McCoy track down Cota. The weird thing is they way in which Quiquina the contact is introduced. In his briefing, General Taylor tells McCoy that; “Ramon killed her husband in front of her, then he killed her baby and used the corpse to smuggle cocaine, then he raped her.”

“JESUS CHRIST! Was all that horrific detail necessary?!?” It’s not enough for Cota to kill her. No, he had to also kill her baby and then smuggle cocaine in its corpse. That doesn’t even make sense! On top of that, they had to throw rape in there. This line upsets me, more than any of the violence in the movie. To go that graphic in a movie called “Delta Force” is cruel. Not to mention the most horrifying utterance in the film is so incompetently delivered, it feels like a joke. I need a shower.

The end is a big shootout with slow-mo fist fights between Norris and henchmen. One last thing that leaves a sour taste in my mouth is the fate of Quiquina. She finds herself one-on-one with Cota in the middle of the jungle. At this point you figure, “Cota killed everyone she ever loved, now it’s payback.” Instead, Cota kills her. There goes the end of one of the most disrespected female characters in film history. Of course, Chuck Norris gets to finish the job because he’s Chuck Norris. Give me a break.

The only truly memorable action scene in DF2 is when Norris trains a group of newbies. He kicks all of their asses in slow-mo hand-to-hand combat. Later, you see Norris training them in a montage. You figure, “Oh, now they’ll be able to beat him.” He still kicks their asses, except now they do a little better. Not that it matters as these recruits never play a significant role. Just like Chuck Norris shouldn’t be considered a significant action star. He’s good with the kicks and punches but he can’t act and his movies are embarrassing.

P.S. One of the minor bad guys in DF2 was played by Mark Margolis (Hector Salamanca from Breaking Bad). Ever notice how much that guy looks like Ron Paul? It’s funny cause Chuck Norris was a Ron Paul supporter. It’s all connected!